PIne Tree Elementary

If you're lucky enough to have a kid who goes to Pine Tree in Monroe, you could probably write this blog yourself. When I was about five years old, I started my education in Pine Tree. That was before the population exploded here in Monroe. The school not only went from Kindergarten all the way through 6th grade, but we also had enough room to host "the Harriman kids" in another wing.

I probably learned 99% of everything I would ever need to know by the time I left Pine Tree. I learned about kindness, and I learned that most people I would meet in life would find my kindness to be the equivalent of weakness. I learned that boys did not want girls on their baseball teams, and what you wore would often dictate people's opinion of you. (As adults, slip in "what you drive" and it's a perfect fit.) ...I drive a 1988 Dodge Aries K car, and I carry a $27 purse purchased way back when K Mart was still our main department store. The truth is that the best lesson I learned in Pine Tree was that I was an exceptional and uncommon young woman. That I was self-deprecatory to a fault and way too sensitive. That my sense of humor was very intellectual, and that I talked too much around new people (a nervous habit).

No, I'm wrong... There was a better lesson than all those things. I learned that on the written page, I could create magic. Carol Barry told me that when I was eleven-years old. It became the core of my ability to find peace. I never forgot Carol Barry. She asked me to write and help edit the Pine Tree Pitch from the very first issue they ever put out. Between her warmth and John Warbrick's stern encouragement, I managed to leave Pine Tree with the only thing I would need to survive some pretty tough times ahead: A full pen.

There have been times, years later, that I would stand on the subway platform in Manhattan, paralyzed as trains would race by in every direction. I would be writing, leaned against a support beam, on the back of some garbage scrap paper I found on a random bench. I have been published, and I have been rejected. But I have never been alone. My pen is my peace and my salvation. It is, as Carol Barry promised me, a silent friend through all things.

It is a lifetime later, and my own little girl walks those same halls. She eats in the same cafeteria and borrows books from the same library. It is, in many ways, bizarre to me. Have thirty-five years really gone by so quickly? I see her at certain angles or hear her be much too sensitive to life, and I can see myself through the mirror of time. She is gifted not to talk too much though -- thank Heaven. She is also gifted to have that magical teacher who finds each kid a treasure and obviously loves her vocation.

Teachers like John and Carol somehow unearth the brilliance in every student that goes through their classrooms. They build futures and unearth once-in-a-lifetime gems. If you don't live in Monroe and your kids don't go to Pine Tree, well quite simply, you should move.

In gratitude and peace, and in memory of my good friend, Carol Barry,
A lifetime later, I remain, Mary Vetell


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